


Red Orange Yellow Flicker Beat

by Makizushi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Coup d'état, F/M, Homestuck Kink Meme, Illustrated, Minor Character Death, Non-Sexual Slavery, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Slavery, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 16:07:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3416987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makizushi/pseuds/Makizushi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the Kink Meme: "When the time for her Challenge comes, Feferi’s small and not the least bit challenging. So the Condense gifts her to the Grand Highblood instead of culling her in the usual duel and thinks no more on it. Feferi grows up a slave at the Highblood’s whims, becoming hardened and careful under this unintentional tutelage."</p><p>The Challenge came much sooner than Feferi expected. Though she was under the impression that she had until Ascension, and she had led her friends to believe the same, Her Imperious Condescension did not give her the luxury of time. But there were people to protect, secrets to keep, and an empire to reform. She was not ready, but there is a vast difference between "not now" and "never" in the secret heart of a determined princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Orange Yellow Flicker Beat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tsunamayo Makizushi's Writing Tumblr](http://tsunamayo-makizushi.tumblr.com)

_T)(is is t)(e start of )(ow it all ends_

A huge, wrenching boom sounded from somewhere in Feferi’s underwater hive. Shock waves traveled through the water as though part of a wall had collapsed, and the continuous rumbling seemed to suggest it was likely to happen again very soon. She quickly abandoned her husktop and swam to investigate, double-ended trident in hand. She expected some kind of large aquatic monster, perhaps one that she could feed to Gl'bgolyb in lieu of orphaning another innocent troll. What she found instead, to her shock, were large robotic drones like the ones that had constructed her hive when she was very young, only these drones were violently taking it apart. With a cold rush of adrenaline she realized that these ones were armored such that she did not stand a chance with her culling fork.

Almost immediately the drones zeroed in on her and cut a path towards her - barreling straight through empty cages, heavy furniture, and even solid walls. While they were somewhat slowed down by all the debris, Feferi shot right back the way she had come. After quickly weighing her options, she spared a moment to grab her husktop before retreating to the deepest and most secure section of her enormous hive.

Yellow messages flashed unread on her screen. Sollux had been helping her make plans for her wiggling day tomorrow. They had talked about her going to see some of her friends in person for the occasion. She had met up with Sollux and his moirail Aradia only once before, and others like Karkat and Tavros she had never met. Imperceptible salt tears mingled with ocean water. It was supposed to be a wiggling day present; seeing everyone, maybe meeting some of Tavros’ rescued land animals.

When she reached a room that felt somewhat safe, for the moment, she dropped her husktop on the floor and tried to control her panic. Her fingers flew over the keys while she considered and quickly discarded plan after plan.

TA: iin any ca2e iit would be ea2iie2t iif ii ju2t flew two the general area of your hiive and piicked you up siince the douche priince ii2n’t liikely two giive you a riide thii2 tiime.

TA: but iif you would rather we diid 2omethiing el2e that would be fiine two.

TA: uh, hello?

TA: look iif you’d rather ii diidn’t call hiim douche priince ii’m prepaiired two have that conver2atiion but ii can’t promii2e the iin2ult2 won’t ju2t get more creatiive.

CC: GLUBBING DRON---ES ARE TAKING APART MY )(IVE!

CC: SOLLUX DON’T COME )(ERE I THINK I’M GOING TO DIE!

TA: WHAT?! IIF THII2 A JOKE IIT2 NOT FUNNY!

CC: T)(ey’re armored and I don’t t)(ink I can take them out. I’m seriously going to glubbing die before I even turn seven!

TA: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIING ON YOUR COMPUTER THEN FUCKIING RUN

TA: 2WIIM

TA: 2OMETHIING!

CC: I can’t. T)(ey’ll catc)( me.

CC: Listen. You need to )(ide.

CC: You, Karkat, and Tavros especially, but basically anyone t)(ey can trace back to me.

TA: what about your mom go fiind her!

CC: S)(e’s too deep. LIST---EN TO ME!

CC: Get everyone you can and go underground, especially you, Karkat, and Tavros. T)(e t)(ree of you are in t)(e most danger. Do not wait, and DO NOT ASCEND. If you can )(ack my computer and my internet )(istory do it, delete ---EVERYT)(ING.

TA: ff no thii2 ii2 crazy plea2e run you have two try

CC: )(IC must be collecting me for t)(e C)(allenge. I’m sorry, I t)(oug)(t we )(ad a lot more time.

CC: If a literal miracle )(appens and I survive I’ll contact you some)(ow.

TA: okay okay umm… FUCK ii have no tiime

TA: ju2t 2iign iintwo your chat u2iing your exact global or 2tar coordiinate2 a2 the pa22word and ii’ll confiirm iit’2 you 2omehow

CC: I really like you Sollux. T)(is is a s)(itty time to tell you, but I don’t want to regret anyt)(ing t)(at I can do somet)(ing about rig)(t now.

TA: ff no plea2e ii can’t even hear your voiice maybe you’ll be okay

CC: Please tell everyone else t)(at t)(ey were great friends, and tell Eridan I’m sorry if you can. Tell everyone I’m sorry for putting t)(em in danger.

TA: ii liike you two ff please don’t die

CC: I have to go. I’m sorry. <3

TA: NO WAIT

cuttlefishCuller [CC] ceased pestering twinArmageddons [TA]

TA: <3

The distant noise of support beams collapsing and whole rooms being reduced to rubble was coming closer. Feferi knew she didn’t have a chance against armored drones sent specifically to capture her. There was little she could do to protect herself or her friends at this point, but she could do this much; the waterproof casing on her husktop snapped easily in her grip. She wasn’t completely sure which parts could yield incriminating data against her friends, so she vented every bit of fear and rage she could on her hapless computer. Hopefully anything not smashed thoroughly enough would succumb to corrosive salt water before anyone had the chance to sweep her hive.

When the circuitry had been reduced to splintery fragments that glittered in the sea water, she darted down the hallway and into a storage room. She had meant to be ready, she had meant to prepare, she had meant to kiss Sollux and make friends with Eridan. She had meant to pet a fluffy landbeast, and hear her friends’ voices in person. She had meant to have a motherFUCKING army at her back at Ascension when she expected the Challenge to take place.

Feferi tore through chests and boxes looking for clothes to wear that weren’t basically her pajamas. She would not face her monstrous ancestor in disgrace like a startled, frightened child. This part of her basement was where she kept stuff she had no use for; old clothes and elaborate nonsense Eridan had given her from his treasure hunting spoils. The search yielded practical leggings that were only a bit too small for her, delicate nearly transparent skirts that would be dry immediately and easily discarded in a fight, a tight undershirt that would be difficult to grab or snag, and an enormous pile of jewelry and shawls. Looking the part of the Heir Ascendant was important, but not as important as easy mobility. She chose an arm band, loose bangles, and long fragile necklaces that would break easily and be impossible to use as weapons against her. Rings, earrings, and other potentially dangerous or difficult-to-remove jewelry she left alone.

It was traditional for the Challenger to wear her hair long and down as proof that she was unafraid. Feferi quickly made sure there were no errant snags of seaweed or bits of debris in her hair before slinging a glittering shawl that matched her skirts around her shoulders and stepping out to face the drones.

Feferi knew the deeper they tried to penetrate the more difficult it would become for them, especially since they had no way of knowing the quickest, most secret ways through her circular labyrinth of a basement. Even their sensors would have a hard time detecting her through so much solid rock, so she had no idea of how much time remained before they found her. Regardless, she would not have it reported to the Condesce that drones had dragged her kicking and screaming from her hive like a wiggler. Trident in hand, Feferi followed the sound of their assault on her home to her fate.

When she got close the water became clouded with rock particles, and she found that the drones were simply too big for the passage ways. That didn’t stop them from wrestling their way through, but it did explain why she had had so much time to warn her friends and scrape herself together.

Instead of risking injury just before her upcoming fight to the death, Feferi presented herself calmly to the enormous robots. Her cool demeanor caught their attention.

“I am Feferi Peixes, Heir Challenger to the Throne of the Alternian Empire, Daughter of Gl'bgolyb, and Descendant of Her Imperious Condescension. You will state your business in my home.”

The drones halted in their effort to collapse the hive on top of themselves. Their mechanical voices were especially eerie under water. “Your royal presence is required. Do you accept the Challenge?”

Adrenalin and anxiety washed through Feferi, but she stood her ground. “I do.”

One drone hooked a cuff-like appendage around her arm and attempted to haul her away. Feferi aimed a powerful kick at its mechanical joint and pulled herself free. “I accept! I face the Challenge willingly and I will not be dragged there in chains!”

The implacable drones simply deployed more cuff-arms and secured her firmly between two of them. Feferi stopped struggling for fear that she’d exhaust herself, not knowing when she would be expected to face the Condesce. The rooms of her home flashed past her almost too quickly for her to take a last look and mourn the life she had lived there. In short order they pulled her outside, ascending to the open air where a short-range space craft hovered just above the surface of the water.

Inside she was deposited in what could only be described as a small cell. There was a bench along one wall. Unaware of who might be monitoring her, she sat stiffly with her trident across her lap and let saltwater pool around her from her hair and clothes. When the space craft suddenly took off she was thrown against a wall and landed on the floor, narrowly avoiding accidental impalement. Surely most people on the small ship would have been strapped down safely before takeoff; she wondered if the cell and degrading treatment were purposefully meant to unsettle her.

After an indeterminable amount of time, long enough for her to be hungry but not so long that she needed to sleep, she felt a number of shuddering, lurching jerks that she hoped were due to the craft docking in a larger ship. It probably would have been a breach of protocol for the Heir Ascendant to die stupidly in space.

When the door opened she summoned every bit of cold anger that she could, and stood before her new escorts fearlessly. These were also robotic drones, but smaller and much more suited to navigating the interior of a spaceship. Thankfully these ones did not restrain her; they simply repeated the phrase “your royal presence is required” and led her to a set of ostentatiously oversized doors.

The doors opened into a very large room with amazingly high ceilings. Banquets could probably comfortably be served in it, but Feferi observed that the only furniture currently occupying the huge space was a great, dark fuchsia throne. On the throne Her Imperious Condescension lounged - not sat, but _lounged_ \- and waited for her to approach. The setup was impressively intimidating; the details were brilliantly staged to set her ill at ease and make her position as an upstart challenger clear.

It was then that Feferi sensed a misstep. The Condesce straightened up, as though surprised, and looked at Feferi hard. Squaring her shoulders and sweeping her hair back, Feferi fought the urge to either cry or throw up as she forced herself to stride forward. Her grip on her trident became almost painful, but she was quickly losing feeling in her hands so the discomfort was actually grounding.

The look of surprise on the Condesce’s face was slowly being replaced by one of annoyed disgust. Feferi wondered if she’d forgotten some key piece of protocol but couldn’t bring herself to care while staring her death in the face. Everything was so overwhelmingly frightening that it didn’t seem quite real, and it took all of her concentration to maintain her courageous facade.

The Condesce gestured at Feferi and glared up at the wall. “What the SHELL is this? What’d you brine me this coddamn wiggler for?” Feferi mentally reeled. The Condesce spoke with precisely her own voice, but deeper. She scowled with her face, but sharper, and gestured with her hand, but bigger. The feeling of unreality overwhelmed her and it was all she could do to keep her breathing steady.

There was movement off to the side and Feferi almost startled. Of course there were witnesses, _of course_ this was a performance that solidified her rule. High above her head a viewing chamber full of trolls, _adult trolls_ , became visible as the protective transparent barricade lowered. A nervous voice sounded from the suddenly restless throng. “Your majesty, she is of the correct age and Ascension takes place tomorrow.”

Suddenly her trident was yanked from her nerveless fingers and she was swatted across the room to crumple against the wall. Feferi could not believe she had taken her eyes off the Condesce, of all the stupid things she could do. “I’m not fightin’ that. Lookit her, she looks pike a fuckin’ toy. Her eyes ain't even- She must be some kinda mutant. Where’s my Grand Highblood?!”

An enormous terror of a troll stepped forward, parting the wall of sea dwellers in front of him with careless ease. “You hollerin’ at me, my fine ass sea bitch?”

The Condesce cast Feferi’s tiny looking trident to the ground with ringing clatter. “I’ve been feelin’ glubbin’ generous since your nasty bass clownfish posse uncovered and annihilated that pod of rebeels. I’m givin’ you the toy princess. Cool?”

The Grand Highblood ran his eyes over Feferi consideringly; she felt them as an almost physical presence. If her long heavy hair could have stood on end like a meowbeast’s it would have. This was not at all how she expected this confrontation to go and she was completely out of her depth. The Grand Highblood made a lazy, bowing gesture of acceptance. “That’s cool with me, motherfucker.”

The Condesce tossed her hair and strode across the room to the door. “Good. We’ll do a presentation cerenemone tomorrow to strip her of her bank and tide-tle.” Feferi had been frozen in place until that moment. Slavery. _Slavery!?_ Her mind flooded with white-noise panic and she lunged at the Condesce with every bit of speed she possessed. But before she could even touch her enormous doppelganger, she felt a hand close around her neck.

Feferi was lifted off her feet at arm’s length and she dangled well above the floor, struggling to breathe. “Now sea here, bay-be doll. You want someone to krill you, you get him to do it.” Her Imperious Condescension was cold in a way that even Feferi had never experienced; her eyes and voice sliced like shards of ice. She was flung away again, this time cracking one of her horns hard against the wall. This left her too stunned to scream from the pain, and suddenly hard metal clamps picked her up, restraining her once again.

The seconds that followed flashed before her eyes through a haze of terror and despair, as thick as foam. The drones dragged her to a cell while she fought tooth and nail, all restraint forgotten. Once she was alone pink tears finally poured from her eyes and she cried herself to exhaustion, rocking like a child. Which she was. A child. None of this was right; this was not how her life was supposed to go. The word  _mutant_ needled her brain; they thought she was 10 sweeps old, but stunted somehow. After she couldn’t cry anymore she whiled away the hours wondering if her warning had given her friends enough time to escape into hiding. Thinking about that was much better than visualizing her future, so she curled as small as she could, hid under mass of hair, and chased her own thoughts in circles.

The next night found her dehydrated and emotionally wrung out. Thankfully her horn hadn't suffered any permanent damage, so the splitting pain in her head was likely to recede eventually. Feferi had reconsidered certain suicidal impulses from the day before. Death meant nothing would ever change, not just for her, but for the people she cared about and everyone she could eventually help. The optimism that seemed to suffuse her very being prior to the events of yesterday found a shaky foothold; living would be hard, but it was the only option for her.

When drones finally came for her, Feferi steeled herself against the impulse to fight them. The huge room she had briefly visited before was set for a feast of some kind, likely to celebrate Ascension and the official wiggling day of the Empress. She was marched past row upon row of opulently dressed, high ranking officials; obviously all members of Her Imperious Condescension’s court. Beside the fuchsia throne a smaller, darkly purple chair sat in a place of high honor. The Condesce was clearly trying to curry favor with the Church - that or she was going out of her way to infuriate her sea dweller nobles. Feferi’s distracted political musings were cut short when every person in the room stood at attention, and the Condesce entered, trailing the Grand Highblood and a line of her most elite generals like the trains of a skirt.

Once the Condesce had seated herself a spokesperson announced the beginning of the Presentation. Feferi could only miserably assume this had something to do with her, but she was mistaken. Each troll seated at the head of a table came forward one by one to verbally present their ruler with tidings of their greatest accomplishment for the empire during the past sweep. A token accompanied the announcements, each of which was conveyed directly to the Empress’ own hand before being passed off to nearby servants.

Some nobles she graced with a smile and a nod of her head, but others she rewarded more tangibly with new assignments, promotions in position, or choice resources. The generals that had entered with her presented last. One sea troll, a tall and severe looking woman, reported an entire star system with many life supporting planets discovered and conquered all within the past sweep. Her forces were well on their way to stripping the planets and surrounding asteroids of valuable metals, fuels, and other rare commodities. The very idea of it all made Feferi feel sick to her stomach.

Finally, the Grand Highblood stepped forward and silently offered the Condesce an eye-searingly bright red box. She opened the box, and smiled an incredibly sharp smile before closing it and setting it on the arm of her throne. Feferi heard an almost imperceptible murmuring but could not identify an immediate source in the throng of officials. The Condesce took a glittering coil of what looked like metal rope from a servant, and motioned for the drones to bring Feferi forward.

Tears pricked at her eyes again, but she held them back as the Condesce looped the rope around her neck and tied it tightly.

The tiara bearing her sign, that she'd worn for as long as she could remember, was yanked off. The Condesce's wickedly sharp claws slashed through the symbol on her shirt, leaving her with three lightly bleeding gashes on her chest.

And no sign.

Only those few who had been present the day before knew what was happening, so the murmur rose to a subdued clamor as a tiny fuchsia-blooded princess was stripped of troll-hood and given to a land dweller. The end of the rope changed hands; moving from the Condesce's large one to the Grand High Blood's massive one. It looked like a shining piece of thread in his fingers and she wanted to throw up.

The banquet passed in a blur. No one dared look at her. She bitterly thought that the real trolls probably feared both political and literal suicide for even passing association with disgraced, debased royalty. After the formalities were finished she was processed down the center aisle with the other gifts. It was difficult for her to keep her head high. The shame of the rope around her neck and her non-troll status weighed her down until she could hardly move.

It was just words, though. Words and ideas. In her mind, no, in her _heart_ Feferi knew she was a troll, and no amount of ceremony or public ridicule could strip her of the ability to walk like a princess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beautiful illustration by [Kathgaele](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kathgaele).
> 
> To read the full Kink Meme prompt, please click [here](http://homesmut.dreamwidth.org/40248.html?thread=46478648).
> 
> A huge thank you to my Editor-In-Chief, she is the very best like no one ever was. Also, I obsessively micro-edit even after posting, I can't help myself. Be warned.
> 
> Wanna ask me stuff? See writing updates and snippets? Come chat with me on my writing tumblr: [Tsunamayo Makizushi's Writing Tumblr](http://tsunamayo-makizushi.tumblr.com)
> 
> Kudos and comments are very appreciated, thank you for reading!


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